


Antarctica Is Always To The Point

by genarti



Series: Lunar Base ABC [6]
Category: Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space, Courfeyrac cameo, Fictional politics, Friendship, Gen, Kevin (sort of), Louison cameo, Worldbuilding, pure silliness, revolutionary plotting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-02
Updated: 2015-04-02
Packaged: 2018-03-20 20:37:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3664137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/genarti/pseuds/genarti
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Enjolras and Feuilly, on the moon as anywhere else, have certain preoccupations.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Antarctica Is Always To The Point

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tritonvert](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tritonvert/gifts).



> This is a very belated birthday present for Jane -- only, what, two months late? -- who asked for more moon base and/or something with Enjolras and Feuilly, and is getting both. I hope it suits! <3 I certainly had tremendous fun writing it.

Lunar Base ABC, like every lunar installation which had been built as a population center, had a great deal of unused space. It was only sensible: a lunar base, constructed at great expense for an indefinite future in the most unforgiving of inhabited environments save outer space, must be able to accommodate future needs as well as present ones. 

Some of this unused space was in the form of sealed-off sections: cheerless, isolated, often airless, maintained by robots and sensors on a scrupulous schedule and otherwise neglected until the day when a growing population might have need of them. More was simply in the form of rooms built on a larger scale than the present population needed them to be. Laboratories held unused fume hoods, more storage closets than researchers, shelves left empty or stacked with untouched flasks and petri dishes. Hydroponics bays contained ranks of bedded greenery burgeoning with oxygen, and ranks beyond that of dry and empty metal. Warehouses had the luxury of storing goods on accessible shelves and in stacks according to the greatest convenience of their maintainers, while high spaces and far corners gathered dust. Any society or clique, formal or informal, might claim for their own a recreation nook or a particular section of a cafeteria and, unless they obstructed too major a thoroughfare thereby, continue to use it as they liked unmolested. ABC Base was still in those days a small outpost compared to its designers' dreams, though it was the largest and certainly the grandest of the lunar towns.

It was towards one of these cafeterias that two young men were making their way in the easy, bounding stroll of native moon-dwellers. 

Musain Caf, technically M32 Cafeteria in the bland official nomenclature of maps and taxation, was a popular cafeteria among the youth of that time. It boasted hearty if not astonishing food, a menu heavily weighted towards caffeine and such light fare as might be consumed over conversation or study, and -- most attractively -- a layout which resembled a flower, or perhaps a certain kind of fungal colony. Around its central kitchen were arrayed a large number of small round rooms, all connected by corridors of various but short lengths, all officially open to the public but easy to take over with a group of friends. It was from this feature that the Musain had acquired its unofficial name, from the young folk of half a generation prior, who had declared it a good place to 'muser', that is, to wander aimlessly. One scholar (officially of history and electrical engineering, unofficially of wordplay) made jokes about hunting dogs at rest, others about deep thoughts, others still about muses of inspiration; in short, the joke stuck, the name transformed until it stuck as well. Some rooms had acquired characteristics of their own, by neighborhood tradition: one quiet, another loud and raucous, a third full of games, a fourth festooned with an ever-changing mural in continual creation by its patrons, who made use of the markers kept in cups on each table. Others were unofficially owned by one group or another, with the tacit support of the caf's supervisor Louison. She bustled from room to room, welcomed in all, one eye on everything, the other tipping an indulgent wink to her favorites, a silver-haired bustle of efficiency, thin as a rail, limping from an old factory injury, gathering up plates, scolding some, flattering others, a comforting and silent presence passing still others, aware of everything, assuring that everything that passed within Musain Caf was to her standards. Anything that failed that assessment would be remedied; anyone who failed it would swiftly mend their habits or be barred from its doors with steely politeness until such time as they did so.

In one particular room, a certain group was accustomed to congregate. Several of them were young; many of them were students; all of them were at the very least sympathetic to certain views of the Moon's proper status relative to Earth. A core group were strongly partisan. 

That core group was responsible as well for certain modifications to the scanners of the room, which were triggered at such times as the population and subjects of discussion warranted it. Louison had smiled crookedly, tipped them a wink, murmured further suggestions for this modification. On the wall of the room was a map of the Moon, each sea delineated and each lunar base marked. A thing both useful and decorative, made political by context.

The young men were members of this group. They moved down the hall arm-in-arm, a mark of close friendship as well as of native comfort with lunar gravity; their heads were bent towards each other in close conversation. Their names were Enjolras and Feuilly.

"It's as you've said," Enjolras said. He was a tall young man, slim, astonishingly beautiful, apparently unconscious of it, dressed in a simple jumpsuit of the sort seen everywhere in any moon base. His hair, by inattention rather than design, had grown out of its close cropping into an unfashionable but flattering spill of blond curls. "Many of the variables which affect shipping are simply beyond our control. I used to think of it as a transmission between two end points, but of course it's not; that's vital to remember. Intra-Earth politics play a huge role."

"Earth glosses over that as well," Feuilly pointed out. "I say Earth, of course it's nothing like so unified as that -- you know I'm oversimplifying -- anyway, the point remains. All the more powerful nations, the ones that have loud voices in the media, their leaders usually all insist that petty disagreements couldn't possibly interfere with their shipments here."

"They'd look weak. They _do_ look weak for it, once anyone looks closely."

Feuilly gestured agreement with a small flip of the hand, and a grimace. His face was narrow, young, dark with the sallow undertones of a man who spent too little time beneath sun-lamps; saturnine at rest, expressive in motion, given more to intensity than smiling, punctuated by a long nose and a dark mustache of the kind known as a Hadfield among moon-dwellers and shuttle crews. "Of course. But even aside from weakness. Brazil wants to show her strength to China, her largesse -- how much coffee did we get in the last drop? I can't remember the last time it was so cheap. Southern Europe needs to hoard its iron, so they send us compressed grain and pat themselves on the back for the kindness."

An older man, with the shaved head and easy gait of a Moon native but an Earth Heritage patch on each shoulder, gave them a poisonous look as he approached. Many considered it gauche to even speak of Earth nations, except in ancient history: the Earth was the Earth, and all of it humanity's birthplace and (so the sentiment went) first allegiance. Feuilly, intent upon his subject, was impervious. Enjolras gave the man the polite, impersonal salute of two fingers tapped to the forehead as they passed: a courteous and wholly lunar greeting, which had grown in formality since the first settlers brought it to their bases.

"It's just like Antarctica," Feuilly was saying hotly, if under his breath. This was an old theme. "That was meant to be a trust for all nations, all humanity, and what did they do? Sliced it up even as the polar caps shrank. It was monstrous. It still is. They could reclaim it as shared scientific terrain, it's not as if anybody's built a city there, it's all lines on the map, but do they? Of course not. They'd have to give an inch to another country's leaders to do it, and none of them will."

They were nearly to the Musain's door now. Enjolras murmured in reply, "The moon will not suffer so."

It was not a statement of optimism, but of determination shared. Feuilly only nodded once, sharply, and tapped open the door to the caf.

Inside the central room, all was bustling. Their conversation paused by mutual and tacit agreement under the onslaught of strangers' noise. Feuilly pressed Enjolras's arm briefly and they parted: Feuilly to greet Louison and order dinner for them both, Enjolras to lay claim to seats within the room that belonged by custom now to the loose affiliation that called itself Les Amis de L'Une des Bases.

A few minutes later, Feuilly returned with soybeans stewed over polenta and two cups of the Brazilian coffee they had been speaking of. He smiled briefly at Grantaire and Bahorel, each holding forth to a table of variously interested listeners, and resumed speaking to Enjolras as if they had never been interrupted: "You're right, of course. Still. Even if such an attempt isn't on the horizon -- the citizens of the lunar bases would never accept it, but I don't see reason to think they'll try -- but even without that, we must keep Earth's internal divisions in mind."

"It's a difficulty," Enjolras agreed. "There are factors beyond any of our control which will have a great effect on any effort of ours. But remember, Feuilly, it's an advantage to our cause as well. The Moon's citizens are not yet unified, but a great portion of us are; our numbers are limited, we're united by the rigors of our environment and our distance from Earth. But them? Billions of people, dozens of nations, disunity masquerading as accord. It affects our own shipments and stockpiles, but so too does it affect their response."

"Yes. It's true. The speed especially."

"The speed especially, but not only that. We'll get allies as much to spite a rival as for our own sake, but they'll be allies all the same. Trustworthy only to a point, but still vital."

Feuilly was frowning. Enjolras waited, not long; Feuilly swallowed his bite of stew and burst out, "To a point--! You're not wrong, of course, Enjolras, and I know even lukewarm allies serve a practical purpose. But it's dangerous. If we gain our independence by apathy and oversight, by the compromise of Earth's internal divisions, that implies to the nations of Earth that our independence comes at their sufferance. Thus, that they could revoke it. It doesn't. It comes from principle and right. It will only be an acknowledgment of what's been culturally -- morally! -- true for decades."

"Yes." Enjolras's face shone with a fervor to match Feuilly's. "Yes, of course. We must never lose sight of that. All the same -- they may not want to recognize the truth. We will force them to, one way or another. But if we can bring about an independent Lunar Republic, and truly anchor and seal it, in a generation it will seem the way of the world. If today's leaders down below think they own us, their children and grandchildren won't."

"What's this?" Courfeyrac, who had bounded lightly and quietly over to the table, threw an arm around each of their shoulders in greeting. "My dear fellows, share your air, I insist. I've just come from watching Blondeau's latest lecture, and I assure you that having a paper assigned on the subject does not make it _less_ suffocating to listen to him drone forth about terrestrial claims to our minerals. You shall be my antidote."

He flung himself into a chair and stole a gulp of Enjolras's coffee. Enjolras ceded the drink placidly, seeming barely to notice, as Feuilly leaned forward and began again to speak.


End file.
